


we don't have trouble sleeping

by depressionshirt



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 100-200 word snippets, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), One Word Prompts, Other, Update tags as I go, gabriel and aziraphale in a sibling dynamic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-09-30 10:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20445326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depressionshirt/pseuds/depressionshirt
Summary: good omens snippets for a friend under the weather





	1. damn right, i remember you.

**honest - 112**

knowing the way angels treated one another, beelzebub reached for gabriel slowly. their hands found his in a careful dance of pinky fingers tentatively intertwined, until their right hand was in the archangel’s and their left had come up equally carefully to settle against his neck. if he’d had a pulse, they would have felt it in their fingertips, but the lord didn’t really look for that anyhow. _“i am made of bullets. shrapnel.”_ briefly, the memory of a commanding stare and a floored archangel flashed through their head. they chased it away like a bothersome gnat. _“better creatures could love you, i know, but now they’ll have to get through me.”_


	2. when we get there

**rest - 205**  
wings were made for flying, surely, or something more purposeful than use as a shield when standing in rains. the poor creature just looked so comfortable, though, standing upright after having been ground-bound for so long, and it was in the angel’s nature to be kind. there had been something ethereal in the way those dark scales had become pale skin and smattered freckles, even if his humans would have described it as occult. _nightmarish._ aziraphale had simply assumed that demons might be uglier, less eloquent.

he had posed such an interesting question - _“why would the almighty place something right within your grasp and forbid you to touch it. what the hell is up with that?”_ the almighty was something aziraphale had not been taught to question, until then. it made as much sense as anything, though; had the almighty set the humans up for failure from the beginning? these things were meant to be ineffable, but aziraphale had been around far too long to think that the almighty had honestly planned for they and crowley to end up on the bus back to london from tadfeild, the demon sleeping peacefully against their shoulder as he gave into sloth for a well-deserved bit of rest.


	3. you must know you are beloved

**beloved - 213**

gabriel had been, and always would be, the guide. _‘guide’_ could mean many things; _superintend, teach, oversee._ he had chosen, in the case of aziraphale, to apply the middle of the three most common synonyms. this was a wise decision. see, aziraphale took in everything endlessly, watched and listened like their life depended upon it. (Sometimes, when he was alone, gabriel decided that maybe the younger angel thought it did.)

there were several key things that gabriel thought angels ought to learn. the little one had already been made seemingly straight from compassion, so that had been easy to cover. what had been really important was to teach them that sometimes they ought to question things, and that they must never withhold the love with which they overflowed. _“you will be charged with protecting them, aziraphale. you must guide them as i have guided you, and at the end of the day, what is it we remember?”_

_“i must never pass judgement upon them with haste,”_ aziraphale replied, quick-witted, _“and i should ask myself why they do the things that they do. i should consider how i can lead them.”_

gabriel nodded, pleased. he couldn’t help but smile when they added, seemingly to themself, _“and i do hope they’ll know they are beloved.”_


	4. like we used to be

**delightful - 214**

it had never at any time occurred to him that he might not be able to fix this one. flowers in hand and apology rehearsed nervously, the demon had made his way to the bookshop. crowley didn't know the worst had occurred. the sign over the door read "staffordshire volumes" and the hours had been clearly listed in a dull, coherent fashion. 

inside it was scarce compared to its former glory. the shelves were cheap metal, grey and not tall by any means. aziraphale's armchair stood in place, but it wasn't crowley's celestial that sat upon it. instead michael had settled with perfect posture, one leg crossed over the other and hand poised over the pages of a bible in sheer belle sleeves. when they looked up, they marked their page and gave crowley a look of scorn.

_"where've you taken him?"_ the demon snapped his teeth, quiet and with a curled lip. 

michael smiled, that full shit-eating grin crowley hated so much. _"well, we took him home, of course."_

_"took him home?"_

_"aziraphale called gabriel in **tears.** all manner of distraught, poor thing. told us he was ready to return."_ michael had never seen anyone's day go downhill so quickly. it was, of course, _delightful._


	5. turning page

**truth - 228**

"were you going to tell me?"  
"that they were back? no. that was why i sent michael."

crowley glared at gabriel across a shitty, wooden folding table in a meeting room in hell. the demon had had a bone to pick, but now that the archangel was here, there was only one real question. 

_"why you?"_

gabriel cocked his head, steepled his fingers, and smiled in a way that crowley decided was so much worse that michael. "why me? i'm the _guide,_ crawly. i call the angels home."

"no, he would have called out to metatron if it weren't personal and you know it. why did they call _you?_"

the archangel leaned forward, violet eyes dark in the dim lighting. "simply put, demon, _aziraphale trusts me._ i've watched over them for _aeons._ do you really think they'd call anyone else when they didn't know what to do?"

crowley's fingers dug into the cheap wood. "you barely know them." there was venom there, thickly coating uncertainty. 

gabriel smirked. "oh, don't i? they're 6,000 years old, i fought with uriel about what we ought to _name them._ i taught them everything, before i sent them to this forsaken place called earth. they were dying for it, for _you. did you know that?_"

suddenly, crowley was left to ponder that though alone, ignoring the sound of rushing wind and rustling feathers.


	6. in sickness and in health

daybreak - 169  
aziraphale’s resilience was nothing short of a miracle. when they’d arrived, those months ago, gabriel had been terrified. he thought perhaps a denizen of hell had made its way upward, somehow, but then he caught sight of the _rings. _

aziraphale had been nothing short of a ghost. now, this was by no means the first time that an angel had needed rescue, but none of them had ever been so _bad._ the principality had only come back worse too, time and time again. 

they always improved. always collapsed. spent a thousand sleepless nights sheltered beneath gabriel’s protective wingspan. gabriel had seen aziraphale die, nearly, and claw their way back over the fucking precipice - they were a restless denizen, insitent on protecting their humans, but gabriel had never remembered anyitnhg as clearly as the first time day broke for them. the first time the angel rose from practical death to rasp his name like it was the only one that had ever existed. 

gabriel always, _always_ remembered the daybreak.


	7. do we get what we deserve?

**remorse - 201**

gabriel had never seen beelzebub look truly angry. well, no, he had but - beelzebub had never been truly angry at _him_. standing in the deserted space, light filtering in through the bracken forming a low ceiling overhead, everything changed on the drop of a dime.

their shoulders sagged, killer posture gone, and they let out an anguished shriek that set the ground above them shaking. this had been their home, cold and scented with rot and mildew. that had been an oil lamp, this the very throne that had seen them toil and strain and _suffer._ Their smallish form shook with the weight of the choked sobs that moved through them, vaguely avian. Not enough to be angelic, but _so close. _

_What could possibly fill the silence left behind? _

Their slow turn set Gabriel up to tense like a serpent poised to strike. Tears cut through the grime on the Lord’s cheeks, once-beautiful smile replaced with long, ugly teeth. Beelzebub’s eyes had gone full scarlet-red, and their brow knit like they had turned their face toward the sun. There was no yelling - Gabriel would have preferred the yelling - only a line whimpered softly in the cruel morning air. 

_“How could you?”_


End file.
